TÁRKI releases Household Monitor 2012

In late April 2013 Tárki published a study entitled ‘Inequality and polarisation in the Hungarian society”, which was based on the last wave of Tárki Household Monitor surveys. Research in this area has been carried out since the early 1990s, but only recently on a bi-annual basis. The main purpose of the research is to provide a reliable assessment of the changes in the stratification of society and in social inequality. The survey focuses primarily on issues concerning labour market and income, consumption and economic expectations as well as political attitudes. The survey covered 2,000 households and all household members aged 16 and over living in these households, this time it was conducted in October 2012. Within half a year a web-based report was published, including the results of the first analyses of the database.

Main results are as follows: (a) income inequality increased between 2009 and 2012 from 7.2 to 9.0 measured by decile ratio of the top to bottom, while the income share of the bottom decile decreased from 3.1 percent to 2.5 percent respectively; (b) relative income poverty also significantly increased from 14.0 to 17.0 percent in these years; (c) inflation adjusted consumption also declined. Both the economic crisis and the policy response contributed to these negative trends, some of which were already observable in 2007.

This wave of the survey was supported by the state secretariat for social inclusion.